It’s been a while since I’ve played the local farmers’ market a block away from 4th Street. Showers in the area and a muggy day (and so was my sound, at first). There were lots of Lehigh students and parents headed down to the bookstore and there were some interesting moments. I previewed my Celtic drinking song The Crawl saying that this was an entirely inappropriate song for the occasion.
A grandmother with her young grandchild came up to play some tamborine with me on Shoo That Fly. I found out that her second birthday is tomorrow so we sang it for her a day early. Nice.
I played particularly strong today, partly because I missed playing the Philly Folk Fest this year whilst several of my younger friends did. It reminded me of the magic of the times I did get to play on those stages, hang out with other folks on the circuit and be part of the larger folk scene. Seems its harder to make a dent playing there – due to being in CT, not having new recordings, change in the booking people.
I decided today to play as if I were in front of that festival audience and I played hard. It felt good.
Tomorrow, I’m doing a family concert in Emmaus and that will be two sets in front of a good audience.